Cracks
by Hetabel
Summary: Clementine was able to save Luke from drowning, however he wasn't able to do the same for her. How will the remaining members of the group react to the loss of Clem and a guilty Luke?
1. A Broken Promise

**A/N: Hey guys! I had this idea bouncing around in my brain for quite some time, so I decided to write a little something about it. **

**Update 12/10: I decided to continue this story, so if you want to read something I whipped up quickly, continue onto the next chapter!**

_**[EPISODE 1: AGAINST THE TIDE] **_

_**Prologue: A Broken Promise, **aka the cracks within Luke's heart deepens, due to a sudden twist of events._

_)(_

_'__It wasn't supposed to be like this,' _was the only thought coursing through his mind as a warm hand pulled him up from the icy depths.

No one was supposed to die today, or at all throughout the past two weeks. Nick, Pete, Rebecca, Alvin, Sarah, Carlos, and so many others had died due to his failures of creating or sticking to a decent plan.

Shit starting going down (Well for today, at least. Stuff had been going downhill since the fucking apocalypse started) when the group thought it would be a _oh so fucking great idea to listen to Arvo and cross a freaking frozen lake._

He had prayed nothing would ruin the mood of his surprisingly joyful birthday last night.

Naturally, the odds were not in his favor.

_He just had to _crack the ice and fall in_,_ being unable to fully move himself out of the chilly death pit, due to his injured leg.

_Just his damn luck._

Bonnie and Clem were the only members of the group relatively near him, Bonnie panicking and yelling at Luke to let her help him escape his seemingly unavoidable doom of broken ice and several approaching walkers. Clem watched their argument with silence, but her distressed expression was louder than thunder to Luke.

He never was into deeply involved in a religion, but this sure damn looked like karma coming to bite him in the ass. _After all, the one who leads others to their deaths is the one who deserves to die the most of all._

The last few minutes of his predicament were a jumble. The ice pulsed with each gunshot that Bonnie fired at the incoming walkers, groaning with each shaky step that Clem took towards him.

Despite his pleas for Clem to stay away and just leave him to receive the punishment that he completely deserved, to complete the loop of all the deaths caused by him and not harm anyone else, she kept on coming, stubborn as a damn mule.

He peered up into her amber eyes, full of determination as she reached him and offered her hand out to him.

"_It's gonna be alright."_

_CRACK!_

_No... No, it's not gonna be okay._

The ice shattered beneath them, as the screams surrounding them were quickly drowned out by the pressure of _really_ _fucking freezing cold_ _water_ that burned his eyes and lungs.

The only sound that reached his ears was a steady, _BANG! BANG! BANG!_

_It sounded like..._

He turned around to see the source of the racket. He could barely make out the murky shapes of a small figure fighting off a larger one, that was clinging onto her foot. After a second, the lurker was off and she was heading towards Luke.

_Oh no._

Another walker popped up near her, yet Clem didn't see it, oblivious to the arms reaching out to end her chances of survival.

Luke rushed over to help, despite his body screaming at him _to just leave her and get some damn oxygen!_

He plowed into the sinking lurker, strangling it and pushing the cursed thing down into the dark depths where it belonged, freeing Clem from her captor. However, the blasted thing grabbed onto his ankle, shaking and pulling him down as into waters as well.

Clem watched for a second, before furiously shaking her head and swimming downwards towards the killer, grabbing its arm off of Luke.

Luke felt relief rush throughout his body.

The walker snatched Clem and lunged towards her neck, taking a huge bite out of her neck.

His relief vanished in an instance.

Clem's mouth opened in a silent scream. The water darkened around her, turning a murky red as Luke watched, frozen in shock. Blood poured from her neck, as her eyes started to close.

_OH MY FUCKING GOD!_

_NO, NO, NO, NO! NOT AGAIN!_

Slowly, she reopened her eyes, struggling to keep them open. They settled on Luke with surprise, as if she only noticed he was there for the first time.

She opened her mouth, to let out a helpless whimper "Luk-"

The lurker latched itself onto her, ripping her throat out mid-sentence. Her bright eyes died out instantly, but her deadly stare remained on Luke.

Luke backed away in disgust, his lungs blazing and his eyes burning themselves at the sight of Clem's sudden demise.

He felt repulsed at that walker, at the world, but most of all... at himself.

_He killed her._

_HE KILLED CLEM!_

_HE COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING AND NOT WATCHED LIKE A FUCKING DUMB IDIOT! NOW SHE'S JUST A PILE OF SHREDS AND IT'S ALL HIS FAULT!_

Instinctively, he tried to take a deep breath to calm himself down (which he doubts would be possible anymore) only to choke on the chilly water entering his systems.

A moment later he felt a hand gripping onto the back of his tattered sweater's collar, pulling him upwards. He presumed it was another walker searching and successfully finding their next meal.

_"I'd come back for you..."_

_Clem had kept her promise._

_"Thank ya, Clem. I'd do the same."_

_Except he didn't. He failed the lil' kiddo._

He deserved this. To be eaten alive and be in pain, after all the trouble he had caused everyone else. Plus, he gets to suffocate at the same time! _What a generous bonus!_

_Sorry if I don't taste good. I'm not exactly a happy meal at the current moment._

Luke stayed limp, preparing for something to start chomping on his shoulder. He wasn't expecting to be slowly raised out of the water and onto the ice, where a cold wind rustled his frozen bones.

_Wait... what?_

Luke stared up into his savior's eyes.

Jane's dark gaze returned his.

And that's all he remembered before passing out.


	2. Suffocating Matters

_**Chapter 1: Suffocating Matters** aka, i__n which the group likes to scream a lot, and Luke has an internal struggle between terror, guilt, insecurity, dishonesty, and ... romance? Also, Bonnie doesn't like leaving Luke and Jane alone, and a certain teenage Russian thinks Luke is Elsa. Plus, lots and LOTS, of icy puns and angry people!_

_Enjoy~_

_)(_

_"Luke! Luke, oh god, snap out of it! Jane, he's barely breathing!"_

_"JANE, WHERE THE HELL IS CLEM? DID YOU GET HER OUT OF THE WATER YET?"_

_"Kenny, man, just chill..."_

_"I'm sorry Mike, but I CAN'T 'CHILL' WHILE CLEM'S STILL STUCK DOWN THERE and PROBABLY 'CHILLING' TO DEATH!"_

_"Kenny, I'm... I'm so sorry. It's too late."_

_"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME LOOK FOR HER! Mike... Just hold AJ and keep your eyes peeled on that damn Ruskie! I'm going back on the ice!"_

_"Она умерла?"_

_"Kenny, you're gonna get yourself killed! KENNY GET YOUR DAMN ASS BACK HERE!"_

_"Замороженные человек? Он Эльза?"_

_"Oh my god, oh... It's all my fault!"_

_"Bonnie, calm down! We've gotta get him inside. Help me lift him up!"_

_"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. Just... lil' sweet Clem's gone... I can't lose him too..."_

_"Help me revive him and then he may have a chance to survive."_

_"But for how much longer?"_

_"I... I don't know."_

_)(_

Brown eyes flickered open, his soul still reeling from his terrifying experience while his brain shocked into alert, now suddenly aware of and processing the unfamiliar surroundings.

_Well, one of them was a tad familiar. _

Jane was above him, her chilled lips pressing down onto his.

_What? I thought I'm supposed to be in hell, not heaven. _

_God, I need to stop thinking with my dick and start thinking with my head instead. You just caused a little girl to die, and you're currently freezing to death at the moment so calm the fuck down!_

However this wasn't like last time. He was freezing, his back was pressed against something hard, and Jane's face was sideways to his body, her eyes closed and her eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

_Wait._

He felt the breath of oxygen flowing from her mouth into his.

_Oh. CPR._

Someone else, someone who wasn't Jane (he noticed that her hands were on the besides his head, twitching nervously on the floor) was pressing their small hands into his chest, near the area where his heart laid underneath his layers of clothes and skin.

_How do I get them to stop? __I'm alive... well, at least I think I am. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be givin' CPR to a damn lurker._

A mischievous thought raced across his mind, which he instantly tried to reject but... it was just to damn amusing to not act upon.

He summoned the air inside of him and heaved out a huge cough, directly into Jane's mouth.

She leaned back, looking at Luke in surprise and fury.

"That was not cool."

"I don't think anything's cooler than me at the current moment ."

Her eyes flashed a hint of amusement, staring down at Luke. He cracked a weary smile as her eyes connected to his. In that instance all Luke knew was Jane.

_Jane, who's mentally and physically brighter than the sunrays draping across the sky during the steaming nights of summer, whose eyes would light up at humor and could kill a herd of walkers whenever they darkened. Her hair reminded him of the sable browns on his beloved art pallet, only stroked in a greater detail than he could ever achieve to magnificently define her-_

"Ahem."

Their eye contact halted almost as quickly as his lovey-dovey thoughts. Bonnie lifted her hands from Luke's chest, clearly staring at the two.

_Dammit. Could this get anymore embarrassing?_

"H-hey, Jane, and, uh, Bonnie. Thanks for saving my life... I guess,"

Bonnie nodded her head as if saying '_you're welcome_,' while Jane extended her hand towards him and helped him get to his feet, before motioning him to sit near the fireplace. It wasn't lit yet, but Luke obeyed Jane.

Bonnie started talking quickly, her blue eyes filled with sadness. "I-I'm glad you're okay, Luke. But Clem... well, she's..."

Jane looked up from where she was starting to make a fire with her nail file.

"Clem's dead. Luke, Clem... she didn't make it out of the water. We saw something down there, but we figured it was too late to save her. You were already unconscious from the cold and from swallowing shit-loads of water, and practically close to freezing to death. So, we ran across the lake to here."

Flames began to rise in the fireplace. Luke scooted closer to the heat, hoping it would warm his cold bones at least a little bit. While Luke did that, Jane sat on the floor next to Bonnie, across from Luke.

"Kenny's still out there, Mike's on the side of the lake, watching Arvo and AJ and trying to get Kenny back in here. H-He refuses to believe that lil' Clem is gone. Now he's trying to see if he can locate her body in the water... but I think we all know it's too late..." Bonnie sadly stated, wiping a stray tear running down her cheek.

_Oh my god. They don't know that Clem could still be here if she didn't come back for me._

_Should I keep this a secret?_

He immediately eliminated the thought. He was responsible for Clem's death, therefore it's his duty to inform the others what really happened down in those icy depths.

"It's my fault," Luke and Bonnie both blurted out at the same time, before looking at each other in confusion.

"Bonnie-"

"No, Luke. I-It's my fault. I was the one who begged Clem to go help ya. Now she's... oh, god. I should have been the one to go after ya. I should never have told her-"

"No, it's not your fault. Bonnie, listen to me. **It's my fault**. I-I should have known walking on that damn lake was a doomed idea from that start. But then we went crashing into that water, and she was about to get attacked from some damn walker. I went after it, but it dragged me down. Clem, well, she... she saved my life. She removed it's grip from me, but saving my skin... cost her her own."

"Did she drown?" Jane asked, voicing both her and Bonnie's questions about Clem's downfall.

"Um, well, yes and no. The lurker... it, well, it bit her several times and kind of..." Luke trailed off, his sentence drifting off like all of his old hopes of escaping Carver without any causalities. Which obviously didn't work out. Everyone from the cabin was dead. Pete, Alvin, Rebecca, Carlos, Sarah, Nick, and now... Clem. He could have, should have done something. Fuck... **anything** would have been better than watching his friends die only inches away from him.

"Luke? Are you... are you okay?" Bonnie asked, noticing the deep lines forming a frown onto his face, an expression that was unfortunately becoming a too familiar.

_No. **I am not okay.**_

_People keep on dying because of the lack of my abilities or intellect, and now... now..._

He took a deep breath, returning the teal and flaxen gazes set upon him.

_C'mon Luke, stop your pity party of one._

So he did what he always did.

_Lie._

_Barely anyone had questioned it before his 'little breakdown' at Parker's Run, so he couldn't he always return to his old habit?_

"I'm fine, just a-a little shaken up, but I'm totally chill," Luke responded in a silvery voice, letting a small smile slip from his lips.

_No need to worry about me. We need to focus on more important things now, like leading Kenny away from the lake and breaking the news to him, in a calm manner. And AJ, shit, someone needs to bring that kid inside._

Bonnie seemed to buy his answer, though some small traces of doubts remained on her features. Jane raised an eyebrow at him, as if saying, _'That's literally the same exact damn sentence you said on the observation deck, right before you broke down in front of me, a complete stranger you had known for less than a day. Plus, stop making stupid puns, it's not cool.'_

"You probably need some rest, Luke. Jane and I should probably start roundin' up Kenny and the others. Just stay near the fire and don't try to pull any alpha bullsh-"

"No, I think I'll stay. To keep Luke... company, and make sure Kenny doesn't try to kill him or anything," Jane stated.

"...Okay, just don't... pull anything, okay? We've gotta stay on task right now," Bonnie mumbled, clearly uncertain that she, or anyone in the group should leave these two alone. After the surprising spin of events that had occurred in the gift shop... she should be naturally worried about the things they would do if given enough time and space. It was natural to be worried, right? It had nothing to do with her silly school-girl crush on Luke, the same one that she had thought had died when he escaped Carver's, but his reappearance led to her awkward feelings towards him hitting her face-on.

"We'll be fine, we're not gonna do anything," Jane retorted.

"Y-yea, I needa get some rest and try to warm up after all..." Luke added on.

"Okay, I'll be back in a few minutes. Jane, if anything goes wrong... I need you to-"

"I think ... I get what you're saying. Good luck, with Painty the Pirate."

Bonnie nodded, as if wishing herself luck as well. She slowly walked out of the door, leaving Jane and Luke by themselves, before popping her head in quickly.

"Just makin', sure," she teased.

Well, at least Luke hoped Bonnie was joking.

After waiting in silence for a minute, not wanting a Bonnie interruption, Jane moved from her position on the floor to the space near Luke, giving him a gentle smile and rubbed his hand lightly with her own. Luke shyly ducked his head down, feeling a bit sheepish about their previous act together. Jane, pulled her hand away, as if sensing Luke's embarrassment.

"Sorry..."

"Nah, it's um, fine..." He connected their grips again, "Nice Spongebob reference there," Luke complimented, kind of glad he wasn't the only dork in the room.

Jane shook her head, a slight tint lighting upon her cheeks in embarrassment. "Wow, I didn't think anyone would have ever get that reference. Even before all this shit, I would use that and other references to various shows, but the only one who ever got that one was my sister... And I guess, now you."

Luke nodded, as if he too had a younger sister who he would play around with all the time.

He tried to imagine how that would be like, having a younger sibling and have to take care of them through all this shit.

Clem popped in his mind, causing him to sigh out loud.

"You're thinking about Clem," Jane said, not a trace of doubt in her voice.

"Yea, but not just her... Everyone who I was leading before. It's all my-"

"You can't blame yourself for it Luke. Sometimes shitty things happen that you can't control, and even though you may not be able to believe she and your other friends are gone, well... it's damn real. I should probably be giving you some type of advice like 'don't give up hope. It's the least you can do for those who aren't with you anymore' but I think we both know that always doesn't work out too smoothly for... reasons. I mean, I've lost people before... but it just hasn't felt... this shitty in a while."

Jane tucked her head into her arms, sighing deeply. "Goddamnit... I shouldn't have come back. I knew this would happen. **I knew it**."

"Then... why did you?"

"Ninety percent Clem, ten percent you. I didn't want to see you guys die, but I couldn't live with myself just... leaving you guys. Call me soft, but you guys have really grown on me."

A dorky grin lit up on Luke's face,"Soft."

"Get to sleep already asshole, daylight's burnin'," Jane countered.

"Tell me a bedtime story and _maybe _I will," Luke teased.

"Alright, alright. Once upon a time I was a fucking idiot. Actually, I'm always a fucking idiot so it's not really 'once upon a time'. Anyways, I was home alone and I may or may have raided my parents liquor cabinet..."

Luke, as much as he truly wanted to listen to the story, felt his eyelids droop. For a minute, he fought against his urge to fall asleep, but it was doomed battle. His thoughts floated into unconsciousness with tales of swallowing glass and thoughts of drowning little girls swirling around his mind in a languid manner.

)(

Luke was able to hear them.

Her voice, all of their voices, combining into a haunting tune, beckoning him to join them in the dim moonlight.

He lurked among the side of the lake, the rhythm of his shallow breaths and her footsteps closing in on him pounded in his ears along with his barely beating heart. It overwhelmed his senses, until all he was able to do is blankly stare ahead into the light of the approaching girl's eyes.

The small figure stopped in front of him. Light brown and hazel mixed together as their eyes connected.

"H-Hey, kid."

Luke took her small hand into his and squeezed it lightly, as if to comfort her. He noticed how coarse her small hand was, and frowned. _Poor kiddo..._

Her hand should be delicate, like an untouched sprout in the spring. Her face should be a sunrise, lighting up with the joy of each new day, not resembling the cold and harsh glare of the moon above him. There should be no jagged scar on her arm, or smaller cuts and bruises on her face.

It wasn't right. How could some deity possibly exist and allow fucked up things like this to happen? Millions losing their lives, souls, and family due to the damn lurkers. Clem's life was in ruins because the apocalypse. Clem should have been worrying about things like homework and ways to delay her bedtime, not barely scrapping by every day and murdering others for the sake of her own survival. She had lost her chance to lead a normal life. Their only hope relied on this so called 'Wellington', and it was a uncertain promise. It could be abandoned, overrun with zombies or even another Carver's camp. That was her only dream, a shaky one, but for all he knew the legends of Wellington could be true. He had taken that away from her. The chance to find at least some bit of peace and comfort in this crazy situation.

Now Clem was paying the price because of his mistake.

"I'm sorry."

Luke tensed as she squeezed his hand just like he had done to her moments ago, except he was deathly afraid of what her reaction would be.

"You look like an idiot."

_"_When don't I?" He replied, letting out a soft chuckle, somehow managing to be both amused and relieved at the same time. Clem pulled him onto the lake of ice, causing Luke to glance around nervously for anything out of the normal, like lurkers or cracks in the ice.

Luke took a deep breath. "But Clem, I truly am sorry. If I could take that moment back, I would do it in a heartbeat. You're... gone because of me... It's not fair."

Clem smiled sweetly at him, pearly whites gleaming, despite the dark. This made him snap his eyes shut from the sudden flash of light.

_I guess they have good toothpaste in heaven. Or wherever the hell this place is. It's probably Colgate or something. Maybe Aquafresh._

_Wait, shit, control your attention span and actually concentrate._

She interrupted Luke from his 'extremely important' thoughts."Luke... look around you. What do you see?"

He obeyed her, as his eyes circled the area. His eyes picked up glimmers of movement from people on the lake, however he couldn't tell who they were, as they were practically transparent. The only thing he was only able to clearly see was a stained, red hat, that seemed to be floating off the ground.

"Only a... **wait a second**. Is that **Nick's** hat? What is this? A freakin' Vanilla Ice lake or something? Where... Where is he? **Where's Nick**?"

She ignored all of his questions. "Luke... we may be gone... But don't give up hope. It's the least you can do for those who aren't with you anymore," Clem whispered, pressing her hand against her neck. She then raised it up now glistening red and dripping red in the moonlight. She smeared it across her face, looking like one of those gleeful fans in the stands who put streaks of their favorite team's colors across their face. Except this wasn't the usual purple and black paint he was used to seeing upon someone's face.

It was a deep crimson, rolling slowly down her cheeks, and dripping onto the floor.

Luke gasped, reeling back a few steps from blood-stained Clem, whose grin fell like his hopes.

Snatched his hand, connecting and pressing their hands together once again, yet only this time he could smell the foul stench of blood and sa sticky liquid being rubbed onto his hand.

"If you can't do that... then, **you may want to watch where you're walking**."

_CRACK!_

In a matter of seconds, a huge crack had appeared underneath Luke, causing him to stare at Clem in shock.

"...Clem?"

He could have sworn she was the devil in that moment, hatred glinting in her now ebony eyes as she raised her foot above the center of the crack. Her crazed expression belonged on someone amoral like Carver, not on the bright kiddo he had come to care deeply about in the past few weeks.

"Next time, **I** won't be there to save your pathetic ass."

She slammed her foot down, returning Luke to the freezing darkness that he was unfortunately familiar with.

The coldness wrapped its grim arms around him, but for some reason his lips were colder than anything else.

Above him he could barely see Clem, only the faint outline of her figure standing above the hole in the ice, with a sinister smirk on her face.

He closed his eyes, accepting his fate as he physically and mentally sunk to the bottom, feeling all the air depart his lungs as he started to choke on water.

)(

Luke had woken up in some... unusual situations before. Strangers in his bed, or being stark-naked on the floor of his apartment and immensely hung-over, but never had he awaken in a death grip.

Someone was choking him, furious dark brown eyes and the outline of a body (one which he prayed that wasn't Jane) slumped on the floor near the door were the only things he could make out in the pitch-black, making him realize that his nightmare was reality. Sure he wasn't drowning, but air was still ditching him and if he didn't do something about the matter, he was going to cause Clem's sacrifice to be one in vain.

He heard people entering the building and yell out his killer's name, but it was... getting hard to... hear... o-or... think... at all.

His thoughts blurred in and out, the only clear one was, '_I pass out way too much,' _before he did just that.


End file.
